* * * * *

CLXXIII.

TO CAPTAIN RIDDEL.

[Robert Riddel kept one of those present pests of society--an
album--into which Burns copied the Lines on the Hermitage, and the
Wounded Hare.]

_Ellisland, 1789._

SIR,

I wish from my inmost soul it were in my power to give you a more
substantial gratification and return for all the goodness to the poet,
than transcribing a few of his idle rhymes.--However, "an old song,"
though to a proverb an instance of insignificance, is generally the
only coin a poet has to pay with.

If my poems which I have transcribed, and mean still to transcribe
into your book, were equal to the grateful respect and high esteem I
bear for the gentleman to whom I present them, they would be the
finest poems in the language.--As they are, they will at least be a
testimony with what sincerity I have the honour to be,

Sir,

Your devoted humble Servant,

R. B.

* * * * *

CLXXIV.

TO MR. ROBERT AINSLIE.

[The ignominy of a poet becoming a gauger seems ever to have been
present to the mind of Burns--but those moving things ca'd wives and
weans have a strong influence on the actions of man.]

_Ellisland, 1st Nov. 1789._

MY DEAR FRIEND,

I had written you long ere now, could I have guessed where to find
you, for I am sure you have more good sense than to waste the precious
days of vacation time in the dirt of business and Edinburgh.--Wherever
you are, God bless you, and lead you not into temptation, but deliver
you from evil!

I do not know if I have informed you that I am now appointed to an
excise division, in the middle of which my house and farm lie. In this
I was extremely lucky. Without ever having been an expectant, as they
call their journeymen excisemen, I was directly planted down to all
intents and purposes an officer of excise; there to flourish and bring
forth fruits--worthy of repentance.

I know not how the word exciseman, or still more opprobrious, gauger,
will sound in your ears. I too have seen the day when my auditory
nerves would have felt very delicately on this subject; but a wife and
children are things which have a wonderful power in blunting these
kind of sensations. Fifty pounds a year for life, and a provision for
widows and orphans, you will allow is no bad settlement for a _poet._
For the ignominy of the profession, I have the encouragement which I
once heard a recruiting s